Remembering the First Earth Day

My eighth grade science teacher was Mrs. Rutheford.  This isn't her picture but it is sort of what I think of when I remember her...

Of course at that time, during the seventies, she always wore a dress and shoes like this...

But even though she was old and looked kind of sour, I don't think about her that way.  She did experiments with us, and she had us bring things to present experiments to the class too.  She took us to lunch and always required us to make at least one lap around the track after lunch before we returned to class.  I especially remember measuring shadows on the pavement daily so that we could track the changing angle of the sun in the sky over time.

She was ahead of her time in many ways.

And it was because of her that my classmates participated in the very first Earth Day way back in 1972.  She gave us a list of options for projects and we were required to complete one for a grade.  For my project I chose to clean up a stretch of road that I passed regularly on my way to my piano teacher's house.  There was a lot of trash being dumped there and I just picked it all up.  I had to take before and after pictures to make a display, and at that time, that was the most difficult part of the project because cameras weren't digital and film actually had to be developed and it took more than one hour to get the pictures back.  You also had to be sure to take up a whole roll before you could develop the film.  I'm telling you, it was complicated.

And so today, on this 40th anniversary of Earth Day, I salute you, Mrs. Rutheford!  You were a good science teacher.

The Long Way Home

We took the long way home today.

After spending the weekend in Indiana visiting relatives with my parents we made one last stop this morning.  We went to Mitchell, Indiana, to eat breakfast with my aunt Mary.  Mary is the only one in Dad’s family who still lives in their hometown.  Mitchell has it own claim to fame.  Not only does it host the annual Persimmon Festival complete with a Persimmon Queen; it also is the hometown of Mercury astronaut, Gus Grissom. (I think my Uncle Ralph went to school with him.)

After breakfast we headed south.  Our usual route home is straight down I-65.  But the detour to Mitchell took us south on the two-lane back roads of southern Indiana.  And as we rolled along toward home my dad recollected his younger days when he had traveled those roads as a kid.  I heard about how:

*his older brother John had taken him for rides in on these hilly roads at speeds of 80-90 mph.  I asked, “Were you scared or did you think it was fun?”  He said, “I just thought it was stupid.”  He said John would even drive a loaded dump truck so fast he thought it would roll over.

*his mother was a saint, full of compassion and love.  She was a hard worker even after being burned over half her body.  The fire also badly burned her toddler son, my dad.

*his dad, just like most dads, had his good points and his bad points.   Although he was not a Christian at the time, he never worked on Sunday (aside from milking and feeding that had to be done).  He didn’t go to church, but the rest of the family walked to the church just down the road.  On the other had, his son Norman was in the Navy and sent money home for his dad to save for him.  His dad bought a cow with the money.

*Uncle John owned an excavating business and was the first president of the Lions Club of Orleans.  He lived near my Uncle Norman who laid gas lines for a living.  These two brothers married sisters.  I still remember going to their house where we saw color TV for the first time.

*the fields we were passing were ones that my dad had farmed with his dad.  He said he would drive the tractor, which would bundle shocks of wheat.  Sometimes Dad would forget to pull the lever and the shock would get too big, which would cause it to jam.  He would have to get down and pull the wheat out by hand.  It sounded dangerous to me.

*the roads we were traveling were the same ones they rode to take hogs to market in Louisville.  On the way home dad said they would stop in Palmyra to look at tractors.  We saw the tractor dealership there.  Dad still loves to look at tractors.

The route we took made our trip a couple of hours longer than it should have been, but it was time well spent.  I was happy to be there to listen to my dad share a piece of his childhood with me.